Anita Dunn heads to the White House

Anita Dunn, a veteran Democratic strategist and top adviser on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, will take over as White House communications director at least temporarily, according to sources familiar with the move.

The powerful post is being vacated by Ellen Moran this week, and Obama officials want to fill it quickly.

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Dunn will start working next week in an interim capacity until the president settles on a permanent replacement for Moran.

Dunn had initially avoided entering the administration with her fellow campaign veterans. But she has continued to serve as a key outside adviser, regularly joining strategy sessions with other members of Obama’s inner circle, and was an obvious choice for members of the close-knit West Wing.

Dunn declined to discuss the move.

As a longtime ad-maker who just worked on a presidential campaign, Dunn possesses strengths in how to project a message and manage never-ending news cycles that are pivotal to the job.

“She is a very skilled communications strategist and a great message planner,” said David Plouffe, who managed the Obama campaign. “She has the complete trust of the president and of David Axelrod.”

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On the campaign, Dunn was part of a small group that did long-range planning. She also helped prepare outside advocates for the campaign. She’ll continue to play a role in both now at the White House.

Dunn actually worked for an Obama opponent in his 2004 Senate race before joining Obama in 2006 to run the then-Illinois senator’s Hopefund PAC.

She has worked with nearly every other top Obama aide, including the group that came from former Sen. Tom Daschle’s political family. This includes current White House deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer, who has worked with Dunn on a series of campaigns.

Since Obama became president, Dunn has returned to her media consulting firm, Squier Knapp Dunn, but regularly offered advice to the White House and participated in Wednesday evening pizza-and-politics sessions at Axelrod's apartment.

This won’t be Dunn’s first White House job. She worked as an intern in the Carter White House for chief of staff Hamilton Jordan before joining a number of campaigns, including those of former Sens. Bob Graham and Bill Bradley. She also did a stint on Capitol Hill, working there for Bradley, and has served as a top adviser to one-time White House aspirant Sen. Evan Bayh.

"Anita is one of the best in the business," said fellow Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee, who worked with her on Bradley's presidential bid and in that fateful Illinois Democratic Senate primary in 2004. "She’s extraordinary in her ability to frame complex policy issues in ways that are relevant to people’s everyday lives, and there aren’t many out there who are better at driving message."

Preferring to keep the focus on her candidates, Dunn typically shuns the spotlight. She is married to Obama campaign attorney-turned-DNC counsel Robert Bauer, but she has dismissed the notion that the pair are part of the new Washington elite.

"The idea of power couples is a very retro idea,” Dunn told the Washington Post earlier this year.